5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar - Vale of Eternal Sorrows (Might Normal 25)

I haven't kept up appropriately with Might's Siege of Orgrimmar progress like I did for Throne of Thunder, and at the time of my posting these we are currently 9/14H. This means that in order to catch this blog up a bit, I'll be posting the normal mode videos and summaries in bulk as per their LFR/Flex wing names.

This first post is the Vale of Eternal Sorrows and will include write ups and video's for Immerseus, The Fallen Protectors, Norushen and Sha of Pride.

IMMERSEUS

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

The first boss of the instance involves fighting the "Tears of the Vale" - a corrupted water spirit under the Shrine fountain. The trash leading up to the boss emulates some of the mechanics of the encounter, as per usual: avoid the large black water spouts and kill the small adds for a damage boost. The Immerseus encounter itself progresses by taking Immerseus' health to zero in order to activate phase two, whereby you kill black spawns and heal blue spawns in order to "purify" Immerseus. Every time you do so, Immerseus returns to phase one with reduced health. Repeat until it dies. If any of the adds reach Immerseus, they explode - this damage can add up really quickly if a lot of adds make it to the pool. Chances are, you'll have raid cooldowns lined up.

As a hunter, there are a few things of note. First off, deterrence works for every bad thing that can touch you - this includes adds hitting Immerseus' pool and exploding. Do not stand in front of the boss or he will hit you with Corrosive Blast. When he casts "Swirl" you have to dance around small zones that wiggle around on the ground, but since you're a hunter this won't be a problem. Kings of damage movement. Watch your feet.

You'll also have to avoid getting hit by Swirl, although you can easily just deterrence this, disengage out of range, or walk through it.

Beast Mastery is infuriating on this boss, especially if you are anywhere far away from the back of Immerseus. The room is large enough that it can cause your pet to despawn, effectively making you useless. Marksman is equally as infuriating on this boss because the Careful Aim phase is near non-existent. However, because of how quickly the adds in phase two die, Survival can also be hampered since its DoTs can't tick down as well as they normally could.

For normal, I played as Beast Mastery. The adds are easily single focused down or Beast Cleaved. You can use Binding Shot to root spawns in P2, or use Ice Trap to slow them down. Ice Traps effectiveness is doubled if you're playing as Survival, since it will provide an AoE root just like Binding Shot.

Barrage is useful for damage throughput, but if you're good with Glaive Toss the extra slow this can provide while it does its AoE damage can help other people out.

All in all, decide what niche you need to cover:

- Are you suppression damage? Do you need to root and stun adds more often than not? Survival might be a good choice.

- Are you primarily single targeting things down? Does your pet despawn? If not, Beast Mastery might be a good choice.

- Are you brave as hell or masochistic? Try Marksman! (it wasn't that bad, but I wouldn't do it again).

This includes your talents: If you need more AoE suppression or to help out another quadrant, try barrage. If not, try glaive toss. If you STILL need crowd controls and binding shot/ice trap isn't enough, try powershot. Powershot is especially strong when combined with Binding Shot in tight situations.

Here is a map of Immerseus' room:

THE FALLEN PROTECTORS

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

The second boss of the instance involves fighting the "Fallen Protectors" - some of the Golden Lotus Pandaren who were stationed at the pagoda in the Vale. There is no trash that leads here, so all their abilities are surprises. The encounter progresses as you bring each of the three Pandaren to 66% and 33%, upon which they cast "special" abilities. Your strategy will depend based on your raid, but how you handle it as a hunter remains relatively the same.

Each of the three has to be taken down to 0% in uniform - if you fail to do this, they will heal.

First of all, yes - you can cleave all three. Whether you want to or not comes down to your raid. In my case, I generally found that cleaving was just meter padding as every other "natural" cleaver in the raid did so without thought. You always have a priority target: the panda you're currently trying to bring to the appropriate amount of HP, the add that He spawns, or an add that Rook spawns, or an add that Sun spawns.

When you fight Rook and his 66/33% adds: if you stack them together, cleave them down. If you don't, single target prioritize either the Misery, Gloom or Sorrow - depending on what order your raid decides on. Standing in defiled ground from Misery is bad, it looks like a tiny earthquake. Inferno Strike from Sorrow is a meteor effect. Soak this with your raid or deterrence it by yourself. Corruption Shock is from Gloom, and you probably want to interrupt this. When Rook himself is active, he will throw brew kegs that can be hard to see - don't be hit or you'll take damage and be slowed. Definitely don't stand in his Corruption Kick, which he can cast after he does a Clash.

He Softfoot: You can deterrence the damage from Mark of Anguish. This is your priority target otherwise. Burn it with burst.

Sun Tenderheart: When she reaches 66/33%, she spawns two large adds that need to die in order to end the phase. Each of these adds spawn manifested sha adds - when you damage these small adds, you also damage the large adds. Therefore, you can AoE and do damage to the large adds, or you can burst single target them - the best option is to cleave the large adds with any smalls that are nearby. Stand inside of her Dark Meditation Field (the large purple bubble in the center of the room) to reduce the Shadow AoE.

Sun casts Sha Sear, which can be interrupted.

Keep in mind that each protector has different amounts of health: Sun has the least and Rook has the most.

For normal, I played Beast Mastery for similar reasons as to why I played Beast Mastery on Immerseus. I prefer the burst control from Beast Mastery more than the suppression from Survival: I can control my throughput more precisely with BM. If I need more single target, I single target and use my Bestial Wraths for that. But if I need AoE or cleave, I can rotate in Beast Cleave and Bestial Wrath cleaves. Survival, however, will do just as well. Your throughput will probably look "higher", but you'll need to make a judgement call on whether or not this throughput is effective and useful for your raid.

The same rings true for Marksmanship. If single target throughput is what you need, Marksman might be what you want. The repeating Careful Aim phase is annoying, though, and can be whittled away by over exuberant AoE and cleavers. The utility from Beast Cleave and ISS is not found from Marksman, as a mass slow AoE isn't that useful here.

NORUSHEN

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

The third boss of the instance involves fighting an "Amalgamation of Corruption" - a Sha that Norushen will spawn for you in a quarantine zone as preparation before fighting the Sha of Pride. You must reduce your corruption by passing trials so that you can deal more damage to the Amalgamation in order to defeat it. This is tricky, as there are a few mechanics to get in your way.

At 0 corruption (purified) you deal 125% damage to the Amalgamation. At 25 corruption you deal the normal 100% damage to the Amalgamation. Above this, and your damage is reduced accordingly (50 corruption, 50% - 75 corruption, 25%). You start the fight at 75 corruption, which means damaging the Amalgamation isn't that effective.

While corrupted, you CAN deal 100% of your damage to the Amalgamation by fighting the smaller adds that spawn. Therefore, your priority is as follows:

1. Shoot the amalgamation until there are large or small adds to shoot.

2. Shoot the large or small adds!

3. Click on a light ball to activate your trial in order to purify your corruption.

Before you go down to your trial, it's smart to soak one of the large orbs that a large add will drop after it dies. This applies corruption to you, but it'll stop the AoE pulse that occurs from the orb. This is what wipes most people, since the ticks hurt quite a bit. Since you are being purified anyway, you should soak one of these before doing the trial so that your corruption goes 75 --> 100 --> 0.

Passing the trial is easy: kill small adds from behind their shield, don't stand in the large adds cleave. You never need to stop moving as a hunter, though, so this is a cake walk.

Beast Mastery does the job well, since it's burst is so powerful. The movement on your pet is a bit annoying, though, if you're trying to move it around to adds. Pets ARE affected by corruption, so playing as BM isn't an "easy cheat." Survival can be good AoE suppression if you're getting overrun by adds, and is also easy to wrack up damage from ISS when others aren't effectively cleaving or bursting them down. Marksmanship is amazing if you are able to be the first to be purified, and will easily be one of - if not the top - potential damage for this encounter. Since your utility and movement is so good with the adds, though, don't expect to be granted this luxury.

There will be a large white death beam that is cast periodically: naturally, standing in it will kill you. Don't move through the large white beam of death. It slowly spins around the Sha, so is easily avoidable.

SHA OF PRIDE

I was playing BEAST MASTERY

(kill date stamp: September 11th)

The fourth boss of the instance involves fighting the Sha of Pride - the infamous manifestation who got the better of the Pandaren Emperor. The encounter is rather straight forward and follows a set sequence of events: Fight the Sha, avoid the Reflections when they spawn, AoE them down, release people from prisons then defeat the large manifestation of pride adds who spawn on the outside edges.

While this happens you have a pride bar that you need to maintain.

You start at 0, and nothing happens.

At 25, you summon a Bursting Pride void zone - move out of it and don't stand in any others. If you stand in it, you take lots of damage and gain more pride.

At 50, you summon a Projection. It is a void zone that you must STAND IN, otherwise it explodes, hurts everyone in the raid, and gives them more pride. As a hunter, there's no reason to ever reach 50 pride.

At 75, you start to project an Aura of Pride - you are now a walking, pulsing void zone of damage and pride generation. Also, you're a bad person and should feel bad.

At 100, you are Overcome and are mind controlled. You lose.

Before Reflections spawn there is a purple swirling cloud on the floor - move OUT and away from these or you will gain pride. If you are standing on a prison when they activate, you are knocked back and gain pride. If you fail to release someone from their prison, they gain pride every second they are imprisoned. When a large add is spawned, it casts a Sha bolt that deals damage and increases pride. Kill them.

When the Sha reaches 100 energy, he releases a Swelling Pride. This generally happens after an imprison when you're killing the large add spawns. The damage from this can be deflected with deterrence, but you still gain the 5 pride. After this occurs is when the ability is triggered relative to your pride levels (as detailed above).

A 'Gift of the Titans' buff will also periodically be put on members of the raid - when all members with the gift clump up, they are granted Power of the Titans. On normal mode, there is no reason not to get this - so make sure you try if you can. It won't make or break the encounter, but it's helpful.

There's a debuff that will be going out as well, but your healers and dispellers will be handling this (especially while under Gift of the Titans).

To release people from prisons, ALL THREE of the YELLOW/ORANGE segments need to be STOOD ON by a character until the segment turns BLUE. Lots of people don't understand this. There are three triggers, they're all orange. Make them blue with your adorable character bodies.